NEWSMAX news at its best
The Bank of Agriculture (BOA) in Kaduna was indicted by Nigeria’s Senate over the disbursement of a N3.2 billion loan.
The loan was given to ten vendors for the purchase of tractors and equipment to be allocated to end-users.
The indictment followed the 2016 report of the Auditor General of the Federation, which was considered by the Senate Public Accounts Committee chaired by Senator Mathew Uhroghide.
After investigation by the Committee, the Management of bank was indicted for failing to account for N3.2 billion disbursed by 10 vendors out N3.6 billion provided in 2015 by the Federal government through the bank.
According to reports, the Ministry of Agriculture chose 10 unknown contractors to manage the bank of agriculture, to which N3.2 billion was paid.
The loan expires in four years.
After adopting the Committee’s report, the Senate demanded that ten unnamed vendors pay back N3.2 billion.
The query reads,
“The sum of N3,200,592,007.00 (Three billion, two hundred million, five hundred and ninety-two thousand, seven naira) was disbursed out of N3,600,000,000.00 (Three billion, six hundred million naira) provided between 24th March, 2015 and 17th November 2015, by the Federal Government through the Bank to 10 (ten) vendors selected by the Ministry of Agriculture to purchase tractors and other equipment for allocation to end users.
“The beneficiaries were expected to make repayment through Service Provider Operators (SPOs) under a revolving fund arrangement with expected multiplication effect on the national Agricultural mechanization agenda.
“The Bank was to monitor and supervise the disbursement as well as ensure recovery of the funds for further lending to new participants. However, the entire revolving fund could not be accounted for by the Bank’s Management.
“The Managing Director was communicated to account for all the amounts involved.”
However, BOA in its written response which was not accepted by the Senate Committee, said,
“Programme was structured with a four (4) year loan tenor commencing from the date of release of the machinery/equipment to theAEHE Centre. Since the machinery/equipment were not released on the sameday, the expiry dates of the machinery loans also vary.”